(Washington,
D.C.)
Why did Hamas start firing
rockets at Israeli civilians in mid-June, and why have they intensified their
attacks in July? What are their goals? What are they trying to accomplish?
And would an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza be effective in restoring calm
and degrading Hamas’ capabilities, or make matters worse?
These
are critical questions the Netanyahu war council is asking at this moment.
A few
thoughts:
Hamas has been severely weakened in
recent years.
- The
leaders of Hamas have done a terrible of running the government in Gaza.
- They’re
not providing efficient and effective services for the Palestinian people,
creating jobs and economic growth, or building a healthy, well-functioning
society.
- They’ve
been deeply affected by the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
and the rise to power of Egyptian general Al-Sisi — the Egyptian military
hates Hamas and thus has been fighting terrorist groups in the Sinai,
destroying smuggling tunnels between the Sinai desert and Gaza, intercepting
shipments of Syrian and Iranian missiles and arms headed for Gaza, and slowly
strangling Hamas.
- Hamas’
tactics of attacking Israeli civilians year after year after year has caused
most of its Arab allies around the region to grow weary or even opposed
to the terror group.
- They
still have the backing of Iran and Turkey, but overall external funding for
Hamas has been drying up.
- And the
Israelis have been doing a better job intercepting arms shipments to Hamas,
and isolating the group internationally.
Hamas’ first plan to reassert
itself was to create a “unity” government with Mahmoud Abbas and the
Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
- Hamas agreed to the deal with Abbas and
his Fatah party earlier this year, shortly after peace talks broke
down between Abbas and Netanyahu.
- The
goal of Hamas leaders — most of whom live in Gaza and have had very little
access to the West Bank — was to gain new legitimacy in the West Bank and
allow their allies to come “above ground” so that they could eventually gain
popular support there and overthrow Abbas and seize power for themselves,
just like they did in Gaza in 2006 and 2007.
- Abbas
tried to paint the deal as evidence of Hamas becoming more reasonable — he said this new unity government
would reject violence, and that the deal was evidence
that the Palestinian Authority could unify differing factions in the
West Bank and Gaza and be ready for statehood.
Now Hamas leaders have reversed
course — they decided they looked weak by making a deal with Abbas and
chose to rebrand themselves as true jihadists.
- It’s
hard for Hamas to recruit violent, angry young men to the cause if they
aren’t showing active armed resistance to Israel.
- Hamas
leaders see the success violence jihadists like ISIS are having in Iraq and
Syria and don’t want to be left in the dust.
- So much
of this rocket war is an internal re-branding effort to look tough and
recruit new members and divert the attention of the Palestinian people of
Gaza from how poorly Hamas is running basic services in the Gaza Strip —
better to get people unified by focusing on their enemy Israel.
Hamas leaders know they cannot defeat
Israel militarily, but they believe they can defeat Israel in the court of
global public opinion.
- By
firing rockets at Israel, Hamas gets Israel to shoot back.
- By using
Palestinian civilians as human shields, Hamas increases the chance that
Palestinian civilians — especially women and children — will be killed by
Israeli forces.
- The
more Palestinian civilians who die, the better for Hamas leader, because by
getting Israel to kill a growing number of Palestinians Hamas believes Israel
will seem more and more like the evil aggressors and international
public opinion will turn harshly against Israel.
The big
question for Israeli leaders now is how to stop Hamas from firing
rockets without getting sucked into the Hamas trap and appearing as the “bad
guy” on the international stage.
This,
in large part, is why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war
council are being so cautious about a massive ground invasion of Gaza. Yes,
Netanyahu knows it may take IDF ground forces to capture Hamas terror leaders
and operatives, find all or most of the rocket launches and stockpiles of
rockets and other arms, and bring a final end to these relentless rocket
attacks on Israeli civilians. However, if he can use air power to accomplish
many or most of his goals, Netanyahu would far prefer this. He doesn’t want
to get sucked into a war in Gaza on Hamas’ terms.
I’m not
saying he won’t order a large ground operation, possibly soon. I’m just
pointing out that while many Israeli political leaders and commentators are
urging him to move harder and more decisively into Gaza, Netanyahu is trying
to carefully gauge how much can be accomplished from the air. Remember, he
was an IDF special forces commando. He knows the IDF’s capabilities and the
difference between air power and “boots on the ground.” But remember that he
also lost his older brother, Yonatan, in a special forces operation in
Entebbe, Uganda. He knows the grief families suffer when a soldier falls in
the line of duty, even when the mission is essential. He is trying to decide
at this moment if a ground operation is essential.
Here’s
some of the latest reporting from Israel on the internal debate under way
inside the Netanyahu war room.
“As
rocket fire from Gaza almost completely stopped for several hours Saturday
morning, the IDF completed preparations for an initial ground incursion into
the Strip and now only waits for orders from the prime minister and defense
minister,” reports Ynet News. “It’s been revealed
to Ynet that even amid the fight between senior government officials there is
almost complete consensus that a ground operation in Gaza is necessary in
order to deal a devastating blow to the infrastructure of terror – a blow
that will have long term affects.”
“However,
Major General Amir Eshel, commander of the IAF, is trying to convince the
Chief of Staff and Defense Minister that the Air Force can accomplish the
same goals itself, destroying Hamas’ rocket manufacturing capabilities and
striking smuggling tunnels used by terror cells,” the Israeli news service
adds. “The Air Force commander claims that the methods of attack, quality
intelligence, the ability to hit multiple targets in a short amount of time
and precision guided weapons, can be effective no less that a large scale
ground offensive which is bound to involve heavy losses and many
errors.”
“Eshel’s
opinion has been at least partially adopted and the prime minister, defense
minister and chief of staff are giving the IAF free reign to act according to
the strategy that he has presented,” notes Ynet. “Along those lines the IDF
continued the full pace of attacks on Friday night and Saturday morning and
even increased the attack on the houses of Islamic Jihad and Hamas commanders
all over the Gaza Strip.”
Let’s keep praying
an invasion won’t be needed. Let’s pray all this will end very soon, and
let’s pray for the Lord to show mercy to Israelis and Palestinians on both
sides. Thanks.
The Big Picture:
over 809 rocket have
been launched at Israel.
635 of those rockets hit Israel
approximately
145 rockets
were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system.
The IDF
has targeted over 1320 terror
targets, with both naval and aerial capabilities.
Saturday, July 12 —
Day #5
More than
129 rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel.
At
least 117 rockets struck Israel.
9
rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system.
The IDF
hit 120 terror targets in the Gaza Strip.
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